August 19, 2009

Immigrants at risk of abusing rules will be first to get controversial ID cards ahead of national roll-out- tHEY CLAIM THIS BUT HOW LONG WILL IT BE UNTILL WE ALL ARE TOLD WE NEED THEM.

The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, today unveiled the first identity cards to be issued as part of the government’s controversial national scheme.

The biometric card will be issued from November, initially to non-EU students and marriage visa holders.

The credit-card-sized document will show the holder’s photograph, name, date of birth, nationality and immigration status.

A secure electronic chip will also hold their biometric details, including fingerprints and a digital facial image.

Smith said that the cards would allow people to “easily and securely prove their identity”.

“We want to be able to prevent those here illegally from benefiting from the privileges of Britain,” she said.

Compulsory identity cards for foreign nationals will kick-start the national identity scheme, with the first applicants having to apply for cards from November 25.

Within three years all foreign nationals applying for leave to enter or remain in the UK will be required to have a card, with around nine in ten foreign nationals in Britain covered by the scheme by 2014-15, Smith said.

The UK Border Agency will begin issuing the biometric cards to the two categories of foreign nationals who officials say are most at risk of abusing immigration rules – students and those on a marriage or civil partnership visa.

Both types of migrants will be told they must have the new card when they ask to extend their stay in the country.

The home secretary said that employers and colleges wanted to be confident people were who they said they were, while immigration and police officers wanted to verify identity and detect abuse.

“We all want to see our borders more secure, and human trafficking, organised immigration crime, illegal working and benefit fraud tackled. ID cards for foreign nationals, in locking people to one identity, will deliver in all these areas,” the home secretary said.

The Conservatives say they support modern biometric cards for immigrants – but they say a national identity register remains unworkable.

Phil Booth, head of the national No2ID campaign group, attacked the roll-out of the cards as a “softening-up exercise”.

“The Home Office is trying to salami-slice the population to get this scheme going in any way they can,” he told the BBC.

“Once they get some people to take the card it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“The volume of foreign nationals involved is minuscule so it won’t do anything to tackle illegal immigration. They’ve basically picked on a group of people who have no possibility of objecting to the card – they either comply or they are out.”

The government will start to issue cards to British and foreign nationals within the European economic area who work in sensitive roles or locations from next year, starting with airport workers.

From 2010, the government will target young people to get an identity card on a voluntary basis “to assist them in proving their identity as they start their independent life in society”, with full roll-out to all British citizens starting from 2011.

The Conservatives have vowed to scrap the ID scheme if they form the next government.

The shadow home secretary, Dominic Grieve, said that ID cards were an “expensive white elephant”.

“Whilst we support strengthening biometric technology for use in visas and passports, this should not be used as cover to introduce the identity card scheme by stealth,” he said.

“The government are kidding themselves if they think ID cards for foreign nationals will protect against illegal immigration or terrorism – since they don’t apply to those coming here for less than three months.

“ID cards are an expensive white elephant that risk making us less – not more – safe. It is high time the government scrapped this ill-fated project.”

The Liberal Democrats said the cards’ “fancy design” did not detract from the fact that they remained an intrusion into people’s liberty.

Chris Huhne, the party’s home affairs spokesman, said: “It does not matter how fancy the design of ID cards is, they remain a grotesque intrusion on the liberty of the British people.

“The government is using vulnerable members of our society, like foreign nationals who do not have the vote, as guinea pigs for a deeply unpopular and unworkable policy. When voting adults are forced to carry ID cards, this scheme will prove to be a laminated poll tax.”

We must never let these ID cards spread in use or acceptance by British people.